Thursday, August 09, 2012

Dog Days Excitement

It's true. I have not been updating at my usual frequency. I think something about the Dog Days of late July and August is sapping my energy. With the Summer Olympics following so close on to the Tour de France I have been glued to the TV. Today it's synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics for the most arcane pursuits known to man.

I'm reading like crazy - Mostly the Game of Thrones series, which I have nearly finished. If you find yourself with lots of extra time and want to read something massive I'd recommend something else. It's not really awful, but the HBO series is so much better. The lack of character development is ameliorated by the quality of the cast and the excellent set design fills out the world of Westeros so much better than the books. The books also suffer IMHO from having ultimately no sympathetic characters. It seems to be the author's fallback position in order to provide surprise is to have a sympathetic character suddenly do something vile and totally outside of his known character. If an unsympathetic character does something good it always seem to go horribly wrong. Therefore EVERYTHING that happens in the book is pretty much awful. I like giant works of dystopian fiction as much as the next person, but this one is just not much fun.

Outdoors everything is pretty much finished blooming or in the fading stage of it except for the Four o' Clocks and the Cosmos, and the Montauk Daisies are not budding yet. It's a quiet time in the garden which in future planting I will need to address. I'm hoping for another flush from the Obedient Plant and Shasta Daisy which I have cut back.There are several shrubs which bloom well at this time of year, so that may be my answer. I've got a guy removing a tree which will give my hydrangea and hosta corner bed a little more sun. It will not make a great deal of difference because the tree in question was dying back at the top and was not providing a lot of shade. Lucky for me the tree is not massive, because it is something of an emergency removal. I knew it was dying and I assumed root damage because of the dieback at the top, but closer examination revealed a huge crack nearly all the way across the trunk which would surely have brought it down during the next powerful storm. There is so little holding the tree together that the upper part of the tree is basically just balanced on the lower part.

Our recent beach tours have taken us to Chatham Light Beach and Marconi Beach. Chatham Light has had some shark sightings, and Marconi is on the Atlantic side, so we had hopes of spotting a shark. We did see a few seals, but no sharks. No matter, the beaches are beautiful and I love to sit on the beach. This weekend I will not have any beach time because of my work schedule - maybe a quick trip to the Mashpee Town Beach today is in order!

I'm giving in to a longing for some spicy food today and making a South Asian style meal featuring potatoes, chick peas, and tomatoes. I am going so far as to experiment with making my own naan. I can get it at the grocery, but they want to charge as much for two small pieces as I am used to paying for about the same volume of a whole loaf of bread so I'm not willing to pay. If this works out maybe the next thing I try to make will be paratha.